Week twelve

Looks like the florets at the top of the inflorescence are not going to make it. Must check the lupin already noticed, perhaps the foxgloves at Polesden Lacey to see if they to the same thing.

Notice the green food waste bins on top of the regular green bins, a custom which has spread along the road over the past couple of weeks, the foxes having learned how to open these bins, advertised as fox-proof. And having opened them, they scatter the contents all over the road, presumably picking out the odd morsel of meat or fat which interests them.

BH does not put out our food waste bin, on the odd occasion when she has something to put in it, until first thing Monday morning, more or less eliminating the risk - but most people prefer to put all their bins out on Sunday evening. The odd occasion being when we have some meat or fish bones - not allowed on the compost heap, where they are apt to attract foxes, rats or both. We understand that there is an ongoing debate on the road social media site (which my Microsoft telephone cannot reach). Perhaps there is talk of sanctioning the fox feeders. Or, more usefully, of hiring a pest controller to kill some foxes.

More serious, talk of pests escaping from the virology research institute at Wuhan has resurfaced. See, for example, reference 2. In ITV3 murder mysteries, the line would be that improbable as it may seen, the institute should be looked at with a view to eliminating it from our enquiries. But given the Chinese taste for secrecy in these matters, this seems unlikely to happen, which is a pity. While I do have some sympathy for them, in that if the plague did turn out to have been caused by a leak from one of their laboratories, the reaction of the rest of the world might be crude and vindictive. With the rest of the world forgetting that quite a few countries have research institutes of this sort, often with links to the military, and an accident could happen in any one of them. Appendix I at reference 3 at reference 3 lists quite a number of such accidents with foot and mouth viruses, mostly, but not all, quite a long time ago. Perhaps we have got better of this sort of thing. On the other hand, what about all the other accidents, excluded from this particular list?

If such a thing were to happen in the UK - which it might well, given the story at reference 3 - I can just see flocks of lawyers, with the media in full attendance, coming in for a juicy and lucrative kill. Or would the government of the day try to bury the matter under our own official secrets acts? Not in the public interest to stir it all up?

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/05/week-eleven.html.

Reference 2: https://2017-2021.state.gov/fact-sheet-activity-at-the-wuhan-institute-of-virology/index.html. From the office of the 'spokesperson' no less! Back in January.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/04/biosecurity-in-uk.html.

Reference 4: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6543/694.1. Another view.

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